Alright, here is the next chapter and it is for everyone that hung in there for me and with me, and totally nagged me until I got to it.
Thank you for it, and I hope that it was worth the wait!
Year That Never Was: Four
There were many things the Tish Jones found unbearable about her time on the Valiant.
Later, when all was done, she would look back and know that the servitude was the least of it. She had jobs like this before, worked for little gratitude and little reward, but not of her employers had been the same as Saxon. No, none had been the same as the Master. He was frighteningly intense, like a child prone to tantrums and torture. What he did to Jack Harkness was horrific, and whenever she slept she had nightmares of him standing over the fallen man, wielding his little toys and smiling, like a child pulling the wings off an insect.
Only this insect couldn't die, at least not permanently.
And there was a hate so personal in the Master's face that burned so cold.
But even then, in spite of daily humiliations, he wasn't the worst of it.
Tish was glad that she was rarely expected to look up, to raise her head; after all she was help and help did not look at their betters. She hated that it was becoming, not easy, but simple to think that way and not let her angerfearhate of Saxon shine through whenever she was in his company.
Poor Lucy wasn't even the worst of it, the poor blonde broken doll of a person that giggled and twittered at her husband, at the destruction and deaths she had helped unleash.
The Doctor wasn't the worst of it, old and bowed but not broken like Lucy, for whenever they managed to meet Tish saw the fire in him, such a stark contrast to the chill of Saxon. It wasn't even the murderous Tolcafane or the burning world beneath them or the fear the clutched at her heart whenever she thought of her sister.
No, these weren't the worst.
The worst was often placed in a soft and cushioned chair on the observation deck, facing out at the world below but turned so that all could see it and it could see all. The worst was often paraded around by Lucy, who cooed over it with a blank look that spoke more than any tears she could shed. The worst was cradled by Saxon, held close to him and nuzzled, while the Master looked out at the Doctor with victorious smiles that grew sharper with each emotion the Doctor could no longer conceal.
The worst of it all was Ianto Jones.
Reduced Ianto, once a young man now a child, helpless in the arms of the man claiming to be his father. Ianto who had screamed as his body shrunk as they had all watched, and Tish had had to turn away. Clutching her mother's hand, she couldn't press her face into the soft shoulder next to her but she could turn her eyes from the sight and she had. But the cries lingered as flesh and bone split and reshaped, as she could remember wondering why it hadn't hurt the Doctor as much, why if Saxon loved his son so much why he caused him such pain. After the small child lay there, eyes tearless but face so pale, limp as the large hands of his father had lifted him up.
No, Tish didn't like looking at Ianto Jones.
When Tish looked at Ianto she was struck by the sheer despair that dwelled in his eyes.
When Tish looked at him she shook with the knowledge that lingered behind them, the pain when the Master played with Jack, the desolation when the other members of the Torchwood institute were executed, the agony when countries burned. Whenever she looks at Ianto she remembers that moment on the bridge when Saxon (no, the Master) had gathered his son to him, when Ianto and his father locked eyes, when that light behind the ex-prime minister's eyes flared brighter than ever.
It was victory. It was glee. It was love.
And then the Master spoke.
"Now you've been returned to me," she remembers the Master saying softly, lovingly. "And I will never let you go again."